Article: Washington Unmakes Guatemala

To mark the 50th anniversary of the CIA-sponsored invasion of Guatemala, Australia-based COHA Research Fellow Matthew Ward has produced an insightful report, re-investigating this pinnacle event.

Drawing on over 14,000 pages of recently de-classified CIA documentation, he critiques the machinations of the US government in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Through primary and secondary research, Ward’s analysis focuses on the motives and actions of specific public and private sector members of this country’s ‘political elite,’ surrounding the time of the invasion.

Half a century after the overthrow of Guatemala’s elected president, the horrendous scars inflicted during that era can still be seen in the fractured socio- and political landscape of the country; as a result of this initiative, the CIA along with the State Department sealed the fate of the 200,000 people who were murdered during the subsequent 36-year-war.

Americans will undoubtedly be troubled by the disgraceful actions carried out in their name, whose reverberations still have an appalling impact on Guatemala today.

Read the full report

Article: Holistic Healing

A better approach to civil-war recovery
From The Economist print edition

IT HAS been eight years since peace accords were signed in Guatemala, ending a 36-year civil war that left 200,000 people, mostly Mayan Indians, dead and a million uprooted. Yet the western highlands, where the war raged most, remain a backwater. Malnutrition, infant mortality and illiteracy are rampant. Many villages lack running water and electricity.

Less visibly, the killings, kidnappings, bombings and rapes over three decades—by both soldiers and paramilitary “civil patrols” or PAC, some of which still operate unchecked in rural areas—have left indelible psychological scars. At the end of last month Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, said that a “deep-seated legacy of racism” and social inequality remains in Guatemala—even as a UN verification mission prepares to pull out in December.

Aid projects for shattered communities are numerous, but many are run by foreigners. Few are like the one in Momostenango, a mountainous district inhabited by 120,000 mainly Quiché Mayans. Spearheaded by a Mayan holy man, known as don Abraham, and a local doctor, Lionel López, it takes a holistic approach, combining mental-health counseling, medical care, social work and development assistance (such as advice on agricultural techniques). Unusually, in a country known for its racism, the ladino professionals who travel in from the city—a medical doctor, psychologist and social worker—defer to don Abraham, who is the go-between with village leaders, and to his insistence on using both western and traditional healing techniques, such as floating flowers and candles down the river to carry away bad luck.

Foreign support, primarily from a UN fund for torture victims and private donations, sustains the programme's meagre budget. The Marjorie Kovler Centre for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture in Chicago gives technical assistance and training. American medical students occasionally visit to help for a month or two. Cuban doctors come for two-year stints. Yet the need continues to exceed the resources.

And it remains a dangerous business, with perpetrators of war crimes still at large. Dr López has received death threats. The mental health clinic in the town of Momostenango is an anonymous storefront. Along the dirt roads that snake through the mountains, it is still common to see trees covered with political posters supporting Efraín Ríos Montt, the former dictator whose reign in 1982-83 was part of the war's bloodiest period.

Encouragingly, Óscar Berger, who roundly defeated General Ríos Montt in last year's presidential election, has started to make good on some of the empty promises of past administrations. This summer the government promised to pay 30m quetzales ($3.8m) a year for the next ten years to war victims as compensation. That, though meagre for an estimated 1.5m victims (and far less per victim than the sums promised to former PAC members), is more than ever promised before, and will be administered by a commission of indigenous groups.

The government has also cut the size of the army, and admitted the army's guilt in several important human-rights cases. Rigoberta Menchú, a Quiché woman and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Victor Montejo, a Mayan writer who returned from exile last year, both have jobs in Mr Berger's administration, Mr Montejo as head of the newly created ministry of peace. But after years of neglect of the civil war's victims, and with many of the perpetrators still in powerful positions, they have their work cut out.

One Oh Oh

Well, this is something. Journal entry #100!

(pause for applause)

(I’m waiting here, people)

Ok. Since this is the centennial entry, the big one-oh-oh, I’ve decided to make it a rather lengthy one.

(Hey, I heard that! And no it isn’t the big one-UH-oh, smartypants.)

Consider this a commemoration of shared stories … a celebration of tales told… a carnival of collective chronicles. In no way should this be seen as a desperately pathetic attempt to catch up with all of my seriously-overdue journaling in one fell swoop!

As you may have noticed, I kinda fell off the one-journal-entry-a-day bandwagon a ways back. There are three things I want to say about that.

1. I’m terribly sorry.

2. I assume full responsibility.

3. But it was really all Susan Goins-Eplee’s fault.

Yep, my friend Susan was here in Guatemala from October 9-18th serving as a translator for an amazing organization called Building Goodness. She was accompanying an equally wonderful group of hardworking volunteers -- Brenda, Joan, Jim and his 11-year son, Ross -- to help build a school in a village called San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango (town motto: This isn’t the end of the world, but you can see it from here.)

I had the great privilege of being able to spend some quality time with the group in Antigua at the very beginning and the very end of their trip (cleverly avoiding the physical labor part in-between.)

On Sunday, the 17th, Susan and I bade farewell to the group over breakfast at Don Rodrigo’s, where our only difficulty was deciding whether the food was more delicious than the view was stunning. (Final answer: it just doesn’t matter.)

In the afternoon we reluctantly left the tranquility of Antigua for the hustlebustle of Guate. Sundays in the center of Guatemala City are a bit of a mystery: everything is crowded and yet nothing is open. People everywhere going nowhere.

But this Sunday was special. We went to a church to attend a concert. No, wait: not that kind of church and not that kind of concert.

First of all, the church is called El Cerrito del Carmen. It is a stunning 17th-century chapel on a tree-covered hill, locally renowned for its beauty, drug dealing, prostitution, and crime. On this day, however, an organization called ManifestArte (“express yourself”) reclaimed this lost bit of land for an all-day cultural celebration!

Atop the hill, by the chapel, there was a display of paintings, sculptures, and photography. There was also a tent showing videos and a stage for story-telling and poetry readings. There were journal-making workshops and theatrical performances. And on the grassy slopes of the surrounding hillside, a constantly changing program of amazing music: jazz, rock, pop, salsa, ranchero, hip hop, and something… I swear to God… that sounded like punk marimba music (indescribably cool.)

And all of it 100% free of charge. What a awesome sight… children and couples and families and friends filling this “forbidden” area with applause, laughter, and life.

It was such an overwhelmingly exciting, inspiring, and uplifting event that it actually caused Susan to say the following phrase (which, according to my research, hasn’t been uttered in relation to Guatemala City since 1927):

“I really like your city.”

[Tomorrow: the rest of the story.]

PS. Happy Birthday to my brother Andy who turned, um, 29 today! Yeah, that’s the ticket.)

(And, yes, Andy… consider that your birthday present. Hehe.)

New Yorker for Kerry

New Yorker magazine breaks with tradition, endorses Kerry

NEW YORK - For the first time in its 80-year history, the venerable New Yorker magazine endorsed a presidential candidate, urging readers Monday to vote for Democrat John Kerry in next week's election.

"He is plainly the better choice," the weekly said in a lengthy editorial that excoriated the record of President George W. Bush on everything from health and the environment to his handling of the war in Iraq.

"As observers, reporters, and commentators we will hold (Kerry) to the highest standards of honesty and performance," the editorial said. "For now, as citizens, we hope for his victory."

Despite taking such an unprecedented move -- the New Yorker has never endorsed a candidate before -- the magazine argued that it was not sacrificing partisan independence.

"We just felt this was an important election to take a stand on," said spokeswoman Perri Dorset.

"I think that we'll probably have to regroup in four years," Dorset said. "But since the last election, we've done a pretty good job of reporting from both sides of the aisle, and we'll continue to do that."

New Yorker Editor David Remnick told the Washington Post that he had no problem in breaking with tradition.

"The magazine's not a museum; it's a living thing that evolves," Remnick said.

While endorsing Kerry, the magazine devoted the lion's share of its editorial to slamming the Bush administration's four years in power.

"Its record has been one of failure, arrogance, and -- strikingly for a team that prided itself on crisp professionalism -- incompetence," it said.

The commentary portrayed a president living within "a self-created bubble of faith-based affirmation" -- unable to brook dissent and isolated from genuine debate.

It also laid down a litany of issues on which the magazine said Bush had short-changed the American public -- the economy, health care, the environment, social security, the judiciary, national security, foreign policy, the war in Iraq, the fight against terrorism.

"In every crucial area of concern to Americans, Kerry offers a clear, corrective alternative to Bush's curious blend of smugness, radicalism, and demagoguery," it said.

"Pollsters like to ask voters which candidate they'd most like to have a beer with, and on that metric Bush always wins. We prefer to ask which candidate is better suited to the governance of our nation."

The New Yorker editors were not wholly uncritical of Kerry, acknowledging that he could be "cautious to a fault" and remarking that his failure to aggressively attack Bush's record until late in the campaign had been a missed opportunity.

At the same time, it noted the "physical courage" he displayed during active service in the Vietnam War, and the "moral courage" that led him to denounce the war on his return.

[AFP-Yahoo News]

Audio: Cocaine Republics

Off Guatemala, a Battle for the Seas
John Burnett, NPR

Morning Edition, October 21, 2004 · Now that the civil wars in Central America are over, the biggest security threat to the region has become drug trafficking. U.S. and local security officials say that by air and sea, drug smugglers are using Central America as their primary corridor to move cocaine to Mexico, where it is then brought into the United States.

Off the Pacific coast of Guatemala, where drug traffickers and the Guatemalan navy battle for control of the seas, fishermen are making illegal but lucrative catches. NPR's John Burnett has the second of three reports.

Hear the report on NPR

Article: Rio Negro Trial

Guatemalan paramilitaries go on trial for massacre

By Frank Jack Daniel

Salamá, Guatemala, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Six former paramilitary fighters went on trial in Guatemala on Tuesday for taking part in the killing of scores of women and children in 1982, one of the country's worst wartime massacres.

According to a 1999 U.N.-backed truth report, soldiers and paramilitaries raped women and smashed children's heads open on rocks during the massacre of 143 Maya Indians in the village of Rio Negro.

Survivors say the accused, also Maya Indians from a neighboring village, were sent to kill Rio Negro residents because they refused to abandon their lands to allow Guatemala's electricity authority Inde to build a dam funded by the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.

"The brothers and sisters who died were not animals. What we want is justice to be brought to those responsible," witness Teresa Alvarado told Reuters outside a small court room surrounded by banana plants.

After a discussion about the need to translate the proceedings from Spanish into local Maya language Achi, the trial was postponed for 10 days.

Defense lawyer Otto Ramirez said his clients were innocent. "They weren't there on the day of the massacre," he said.

After the initial massacre, survivors fled to the hills, where many died of hunger or illness, or to nearby villages, where they were hunted down and killed.

In total, more than 300 people were killed.

The truth report described the campaign against Rio Negro as "deeds of genocide." It concluded that over 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during the war, most of them Maya civilians attacked by the army.

In 1999, three ex-paramilitaries were sentenced for taking part in the massacre. One high ranking army officer is wanted for the crime but has so far escaped arrest.

The atrocity took place at the peak of the 36-year war and followed years of conflict between villagers and authorities over the construction of the Chixoy dam downstream from the village.

The civil war ended with 1996 peace agreements between leftist insurgents and the government but the slowness of Guatemala's legal system means the accused were only arrested last year.

Chixoy produces 275 megawatts of energy annually, and is now Guatemala's main source of electricity.

The World Bank continued to issue loans for the dam even after the massacres. The institution acknowledges the violence but says it knew nothing of it at the time.

In September, villagers from Rio Negro briefly occupied the dam to pressure the government and the World Bank to start negotiations for compensation for land lost.

Alternative Bull

Top Ten Alternative Captions for Bullfighting Photo

(and yes, I do apologize in advance for these.)

10. Moral: Never ask a bull for a lift.

9. “Daddy, why am I an only child?”

8. Suddenly the bullfighter gets the point.

7. After their brief fling, the bull never wrote nor called the heartbroken Sebastian.

6. I scratch your back, you scratch my…

5. On the upside, Sebastian was no longer constipated.

4. Never buy the really cheap seats at the bull-fighting arena.

3. Ruined… a perfectly good pair of sissy pants.

2. Sebastian decides that mooning the bull wasn’t such a great idea, after all.

1. And you thought YOU were having a bad day!

But perhaps my favorite would be: BULL WEDGIE!!!

Go Bulls!

It's true... the bad guys always get it in the end!

French bullfighter Sebastian Castella is lifted by a Nunez de Cuvillo bull at the San Fermin fair in Pamplona. (AFP/File/Rafa Rivas)

Article: Improve Media

Improve media quality, strengthen governments

By Marifeli Perez-Stable
Miami Herald
marifeli18@hotmail.com

Except for Costa Rica, democracy is fragile in Central America. How could it be otherwise after civil wars, dictatorships and even genocide? Other than the decade-long spring of 1944-1954 that the United States cut short in Guatemala, the region had no meaningful experience of elected government before 1990. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have finally begun to sow democracy.

But it isn't easy. Take the media, for instance. Democracy burdens journalists in ways that repressive regimes never did. Denouncing the latter's brutalities certainly carried enormous risks, but the fundamental issue -- freedom -- was starkly drawn. Democracies, on the other hand, need the media as watchdogs that inform the public, air diverse views and provoke debate. Independence from the powers that be -- the government, the private sector and political parties -- is a sine qua non of professional journalism.

Citizens in Central America give journalists high marks on trustworthiness, a ranking that may be as much a reflection of how dysfunctional political institutions are as it is of their own merits. The media are, nonetheless, well placed to do their part in bolstering democracy. Yet, it is still the tallest of orders.

Since the early 1990s, the region has been grappling with profound transformations. Democratic shortfalls aside, the marked decline of political violence in lands that had been charred for so long is no small matter. Criminal violence has, however, soared, even as the military and paramilitary groups sometimes fall back on their violent habits of yore. Liberalization has unleashed market forces that -- on their own -- have not attended to the public's well-being. While democracy has allowed new social actors to mobilize for their demands, entrenched hierarchies of privilege have yielded little room.

Democratic fragility in Central America is, thus, the outcome of a past that left no legacy of reform and a present that is confronting all at once the challenge of social inclusion while upholding democracy. In Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina, for example, this challenge was answered -- albeit far from fully -- over decades, and only in Costa Rica did democracy always prevail.

The media are, in fact, more crucial for settling a democratic order in Central America than is or was the case elsewhere. Investigative reporting is their most efficacious weapon. Among the principal issues are corruption, the lackluster performance of democratic institutions, impunity for past human-rights abuses, gang violence, the military's implicit prerogative in many civilian matters, a host of unresolved land issues and the rights of indigenous peoples.

Though par for the course of good journalism, independence and freedom of expression are harder to come by in Central America. Traditional power structures have simply been superimposed on democratic institutions, which means that the latter are considerably less autonomous than is the case in consolidated democracies. As a result, democracy has spawned subtler forms of censorship that respond to outside pressures and often preempt investigative journalism. Overlapping powers and a political culture only incipiently democratic are hard ground for a robust media.

As profit-making enterprises with a charge to serve the public, the media also face internal tensions. In Mexico and the United States, for example, trends in some quarters favor the lowest possible common denominator quality-wise as the quickest route to bigger audiences and higher gains. Is that the future of the Central American media?

If it is, then the media will not do their part to bolster democracy in the region. The newly founded Central American Forum on the Media and Democracy -- a consortium of owners, editors and journalists -- is wagering that something can be done to buck these trends. The group is seeking to improve media quality, encourage ongoing training of journalists and develop criteria for self-regulation. It aims for a regionwide reach that, in turn, translates into a regionwide pressure group. The forum is a hopeful step in the right direction.

Ties between citizens and the political systems of Central America are tenuous. There is widespread disillusionment with the current state of democracy. This desencanto, however, is corrosive only if it is not marshaled -- democratically -- to force politicians to govern better and institutions to be responsive. Unrelenting watchdogs as the media should be are, indeed, very much in order.

Marifeli Pérez-Stable is vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C.

Article: NY Campero

Franchise clucks with customers
Debut of Guatemalan-based fried chicken chain in Queens and Brooklyn is attracting immigrants who want a taste of home

By Jason Boog
New York Newsday

One gloomy recent evening, 4-year-old Christina Rodriguez danced the salsa with an 8-foot-tall neon-yellow chicken while her mother ate a plate of fried chicken and Mexican rice at the Pollo Campero in Corona.

Every few days, a restaurant employee dons the massive "Little Chicken" costume. A battery-powered blower puffs out the vinyl suit's tail-feathers and cowboy hat. Pollo Campero in Spanish means "Country Chicken," so the mascot sports farmer clothes from the company's Guatemalan homeland.

"We came here for the chicken, only the chicken," said Johanna Rodriguez, 24, of Sunset Park, Christina's mother. "She likes it, so we'll come back."

Dressed in a fuzzy pink jumper, her daughter was barely tall enough to hold the chicken's wing. The girl had finished her helping of lightly spiced chicken, cole slaw, soda and tortillas, but the bird kept her busy while her mother finished.

Rodriguez moved here from Venezuela 10 years ago and now works as a baby-sitter. She's visited the Queens business three times since she first tasted Campero in July.

Two franchises open in city

This summer, the 30-year- old company opened two franchises in New York City, expanding a network that spans nine Central American countries. The openings in Corona and Sunset Park attracted thousands of Latino immigrants who loved the chicken from home. Now the company is trying to grab uninitiated customers like Rodriguez.

According to the store's managers, the Queens franchise served 6,000 customers on opening day, during a gala that featured Central American dignitaries, Latino pop stars and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Customers waited in lines for five hours to buy bags of chicken.

Pollo Campero first arrived in the United States in 2002, starting out in Los Angeles, home to a large Hispanic population. Since then, more stores have sprung up in Texas and Virginia.

"The [New York City] community has embraced Pollo Campero since the first day," said Neil Colley, owner of the New York franchise.

The entrepreneur from Westchester tasted the company's fried chicken during a business trip to Guatemala two years ago. After some 18 months of planning, he opened the Corona restaurant in July and the Sunset Park one in August.

Wanted: more customers

Colley says he still wants more customers like Rodriguez.

"We're looking for crossover customers, people from every nationality that don't know Pollo Campero," he said. "We want these people to be ambassadors for our brand."

Colley is already scouting new locations. He has studied all five boroughs but is also looking into the suburbs.

The Queens branch serves crowds along jam-packed Roosevelt Avenue, but the Sunset Park Campero offers a quieter scene. A walk-up window lets customers wander through, while inside, 16 waiters are in charge of serving 145 seats.

Angel Garcia, 31, manages the Brooklyn branch, but he is a relatively new customer himself.

The Ecuadorean native from Washington Heights tasted Campero chicken during a recent management-training session in Guatemala. There, Garcia learned the company standards. Each franchise uses the same recipes, uniforms, orange wallpaper, fryer machines and mashed potato scoopers.

All Campero restaurants also sell the same toys to children. Every week, the store sells around 250 Campero toys: plastic action-figures of the mascot dressed like a Guatemalan farmer or a robot.

In the coming months, the chain hopes to lure new customers with adult prizes: VIP discount cards, food prizes and free resort trips.

This month, groups of three or more customers who purchase a family size-item will get a free five-minute international phone card. The promotion is designed to allow immigrant patrons to call home after a familiar meal.

You Rock My World

As a news analyst, part of my job is to discover trends and make predictions… or, as oft is true in Guatemala’s case, offer grim and dire warnings.

One trend that I’ve stumbled upon, if you’ll pardon the pun, is that of moving earth. Massively moving earth in the form of tremors and minor earthquakes. Everywhere: México. Honduras. El Salvador. Nicaragua. Costa Rica. Panamá. South America.

Everywhere, that is… but here in Guatemala. While all of our neighbors have been boogieing to the beat of shifting tectonic plates, it has been quite quiet here.

Too quiet.

Now I certainly don’t want to play the part of the Prophet of Doom. Nor will my smug “I told you so” smirk be any comfort as I plummet from my apartment some sixteen floors to Parque Central below (I’m aiming for the fountain).

It just reminds me, however, of what my sister, Vicki, says about her kids: “it s when they’re quiet that you really have to worry.”

And if worrying weren’t enough, now I have that Carole King song stuck in my head: “I feel the earth move under my feet, I feel the sky tumbling down, a-tumbling down…”

Article: Patron Saints

Bully pulpit: Fiesta creates intriguing mix of rodeo and religion

When the big fiesta comes to small mountain towns, cowboys and religious brotherhoods celebrate together.

By Celeste Mackenzie. The Miami Herald

San Martin Jilotepeque, Guatemala - It is just minutes before the rodeo is to start, and some of the young cowboys are drinking beer while practicing their lassoing, adjusting shin pads and spurs and trying in general to raise their levels of bravado. First, though, they kneel in the dusty corral; hats in hand; heads bowed during a prayer for their well-being. They are about to get tossed around by huge bulls, with nothing in sight but a first-aid kit that contained some cotton and rubbing alcohol.

The rodeo is part of the patron saint day fair in honor of Saint Martin, in San Martín Jilotepeque, a small town in the mountains about an hour's drive north of Guatemala City. People from outlying villages have flocked here, adding to the fair's lively atmosphere.

Similar celebrations take place every month in different towns across the country, as almost all towns have a patron saint. Unlike other bigger and more famous ones, the townsfolks here are celebrating for themselves according to their traditions, not for tourists. Many of these fiestas are notorious for heavy celebrating with the saint: partaking of food and alcohol with the image in a member's home, or its own building apart from church. Besides the bullfights, other events include dances, soccer games, fair rides and cockfights.

The cowboys are largely of European descent -- reflecting who owns the ranches and cattle in these parts. The Maya are in charge, though, of the oldest and perhaps most important part of the days-long celebration: the procession of the image of Saint Martin de Tours through town by the saint's brotherhood. Brotherhoods were introduced by the Spaniards during the colonial period as a way to win over indigenous people to Catholicism, and collect tributes for the church. Over the centuries, the brotherhoods came to incorporate Maya beliefs, creating a syncretism of Catholicism and Maya cosmovision often spurned by the clergy.

Officers in brotherhoods are nominated by other Maya men. While it means great expenses vis-a-vis both taking care of the image during the year and financing celebrations for the saint's day, members enjoy certain prestige in the community.

On the big day, brotherhoods accompany the statue as it's paraded through the town. There is solemn singing while traditional musicians play drums, a flute and maybe a marimba.

Following custom, only men make religious music. The tunes are repetitive, but the brotherhood is not here to entertain: its role is to appease the gods and express their fear of them. The procession is also a display of hope and faith.

Eusebio Cal Díaz, whose father was once a member of the Saint Martin brotherhood, says the institution is an important part of the community's faith.

''They maintain the traditions, and only the brotherhoods take part in the processions and pray that people maintain the faith. This is why they go out in the streets,'' he says from the steps in front of the white-washed church.

Women play an auxiliary role, often keeping churches clean and decorated for festivities. In San Martín they sing in the parade holding candles. The statue of Saint Martin passes by on a flower-laden platform on the shoulders of eight men. Incense swirls everywhere; townspeople watch quietly from their doorways, and the occasional firecracker goes off. A couple of hours after it began, the centuries-old tradition ended with a special Mass marking the investiture of new brotherhood members.

Guatemala is famous for the Easter week parades in the beautiful colonial town of Antigua -- also about an hour away. There, processions take place almost every day involving sometimes dozens of men carrying just one image.

Antigua's cobblestone streets are decorated with beautiful ''carpets'' made of dyed sawdust and dried flowers that the processions walk over, sending swirls of color into the air. Thousands come to watch, and hotels are booked months in advance.

But if you are looking for something more low-key, without the hype and crowds, catching a patron saint day procession is a wonderful alternative.

Ah, Antigua

Sometimes things don’t work out as planned. And sometimes that’s for the best.

I was supposed to meet Susan and her workcamp yesterday at the airport, just before noon. The idea was to say “hi” after they cleared customs and immigration, and then say “bye” before they boarded a pickup truck for Huehuetenango.

But before I left for the airport I received a call from Susan’s husband, Kelly, saying that the group had missed their connection and wouldn’t be arriving until 6pm.

“Nuts”, I thought. “Now I’ll have to go to the movies and hang around in cafes all day drinking cappuccinos, just to kill time. Who needs this kind of aggravation?!?”

Somehow I managed to muddle through the day, and finally arrived at the airport in time to watch their plane touch down. It was absolutely wonderful to see Susan again... and I’m not just saying that because she brought chocolate, paperback books, New Yorker magazines, and the Sunday NY Times with her. (Note to future visitors: it certainly didn’t hurt, though.)

Because the group had arrived so much later than planned, the drive to Huehue was more or less out of the question. They decided, instead, to spend the night in Antigua. They invited me to join them.

It was a difficult decision: travel to the quiet cobblestone streets of colonial Antigua in the exceedingly enjoyable company of new friends, or remain in the noisy asphalt streets of crime-ridden Guatemala City by myself.

Once we were in Antigua, we set out for a quick evening stroll and dinner at Doña Luisa’s. Afterwards, Susan and I climbed up to the rooftop garden of the hotel and caught up with each other’s life. (Which, in my case, wasn’t too difficult…seeing as how anything even remotely interesting that has happened to me in the past six months has been immediately posted to this very page.)

As the sun began to rise, we realized that we had, perhaps, spent too much time talking and not enough time sleeping. No, no… just kidding. We were both too tired for our traditional talk-a-thon and retired to our respective rooms relatively early.

In the oh-so-quiet of an Antigua evening, I slept like a baby.

The next morning we woke early, did an brief “this-is-what-Antigua-looks-like-in-the-daylight” tour, en route to find an open coffee shop (and not just for me.) I then helped the folks pack up their pickup, and sent them off with my best wishes and a “see you next week!”

And then I strolled over to Don Rodrigo’s for a table with a stunning view of the volcano, and the best french toast in the world.

Life is good.

Que Viva El Che

Thirty-seven years ago today Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Latin American revolutionary and icon, was killed in Bolivia. To commemorate his life and to clelebrate his continuing inspiration to progressive-minded people throughout the world, every October 8th is known as “El Día del Guerrillero Heroico” … Day of the Heroic Guerilla.

Tonight, in the National Conservatory of Music, there was an amazing cultural event of radical and revolutionary readings, speeches, poetry, and music. I’m talking about the kind of music that makes you want to cheer and dance and clap your hands! Beautiful, moving, soul-stirring music.

Or so I’m told. Sadly I spent the night watching cable tv in my apartment on my new television set.

No, no, no… just kidding. I haven’t even bought the tv yet. And there was no way I was going to miss this concert. In part because I love the music. But also because it’s the perfect way to catch-up with all my far-flung lefty friends. (I think I knew half of the folks in attendance!)

It was a wonderful start to a promising weekend, that includes the arrival tomorrow morning of my dear friend Susan Goins-Eplee, who is serving as translator for a visiting workcamp to Huehuetenango.

In closing, since Che also serves as an icon and inspiration for this website, let me end this journal entry with his words:

"Déjeme decirle, a riesgo de parecer ridículo, que el revolucionario verdadero esta guiado por grandes sentimientos de amor."

"Let me say at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. "

Article: Disease & Poverty

Guatemala's native peoples suffer from disease, poverty after political turmoil

By Ray Quintanilla
The Orlando Sentinel

Caribe Rubel Tzul, Guatemala - Dozens of curious children stand quietly in front of thatched huts along the mud and gravel road leading into this Mayan village.

The girls wear frayed pink or yellow dresses with bright ribbons in their hair. The boys wear pants - some for the first time. None of them wears shoes.

A group of about 40 doctors and other medical workers are making their way down the road on foot, after an hour-long ride through the bumpy terrain.

As the visitors walk through the swarms of children, gently tapping some of them on the head, as they clear a path into the village, dozens of little hands are pulling on their medical smocks. One of the doctors takes in a sudden deep breath and nervously runs fingers though her hair when she sees a line of 400 patients, many moaning in pain, waiting under a small outdoor canopy.

"Don't let my daughter die," Jesus Choma shouts as the medical team approaches. The 8-year-old girl, squirming in pain, is among the dozens waiting anxiously for their first-ever visit with a doctor.

These were supposed to be Guatemala's boom years, nearly a decade after the end of a 30-year civil war that claimed more than 200,000 lives - many of them native people like these. But this team of Puerto Rican physicians and health care workers arriving here during the summer found hundreds of resettled Mayan families struggling to survive in primitive, alien surroundings that seem sure to snuff out the inhabitants and their rich culture.

"This environment encourages the spread of just about every disease and infection, so we have to treat everyone we can," Dr. Jose Vargas Vidot, leader of the San Juan, Puerto Rico-based Iniciativas de Paz, explained after arriving in this village located an hour from the nearest paved road.

Many of those under the canopy - erected on lands that once were dense jungle - walked more than 20 miles for medical attention. Dozens of men were nearly blind from cataracts, brought on by working long days in the unrelenting sun. Many others learned from the visiting doctors that they have diabetes or another condition that, if left untreated, soon will end their lives.

By the time the medical workers left this village 100 miles from the Mexican border, four days later, they had learned a lot about the environmental and living conditions making this community so sick. And they saw why the optimism at the end of the war had turned into anger and frustration here10 years later - something Mayan leaders say does not bode well for a lasting peace.

Nearly everyone waiting for medical care knows someone who has become ill and died, sometimes from an ailment as simple as a cough.

Medical studies from a nearby village show the most common killers are pneumonia, complications from intestinal parasites, diarrhea, infections to the legs and gastritis - all curable conditions.

That's why Jesus Choma has brought her young daughter, Miro, here. It may be her only chance to be examined by a doctor.

Choma, who has struggled with nausea and headaches for years, said seeing a physician in Guatemala City is out of the question because her husband, Gomez Tum, earns less than $2 per day.

But when doctors examine Miro, the mother suddenly panics.

"What's that in your hands?" Choma asks the doctor, pointing to a stethoscope. "Is that going to hurt her? What are you doing with that? Why can't you tell me what's wrong?"

There's no response from Dr. Ariel Figueroa, who is listening to the girl's heart, while his eyes begin moving to her abdomen and then to her muddy feet. Figueroa is intent on giving each patient at least a cursory examination - about 10 minutes - and he doesn't allow himself to get distracted.

"She's going to live, isn't she?" Choma asks, beads of sweat forming on her brow as outside temperatures hit 100 degrees. "She has to live. There's been too much death in this family already."

Their family's sad saga began in the mid-1980s during one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala's history. In an attempt to halt a growing leftist movement, the military began arresting those deemed a threat. Before long, the military missions evolved into death squads.

The Tums, along with a handful of relatives, fled their mountain village to avoid persecution. As soldiers began burning homes, two of Tum's brothers were fired upon. Both were killed in a flurry of automatic weapons fire. The wife of one of those killed also was shot to death.

As the rest of the family fled, a community that stood for nearly 1,000 years was being reduced to ruins.

Tum's surviving brother said friendly government soldiers volunteered to take his ill 3-year-old daughter to a Guatemala City hospital. A week later, the family learned she never arrived.

The Tums continue searching for the girl, but most family members now think she is buried in one of the mass graves that dot Guatemala's countryside as a reminder of the war.

Finally, the family's tortured migration brought them to this village, where living conditions attract disease and harmful bacteria.

During Miro's examination, Figueroa said, he became discouraged by what he learned from the girl's mother.

Their home has a mud floor. They have no screens to keep mosquitoes out. Chickens and a small pig roam in and out of the house.

There's no running water in the house. No sink, or toilet.

The girl likely has parasites in her stomach, the doctor said. But with conditions inside the home so poor, the medication he offered might not provide a permanent solution.

"You have to do what is right, even if that means solving the problem for a little while," Figueroa said. "What's really bad is knowing you cannot do what is needed for people here. They need so much."

Of the 40 Puerto Rican medical people on the trip, there were three general practitioners, two pediatricians, three dentists and an optometrist. The rest were nurses or were certified to dispense medication.

By the time the first day in the clinic was complete, more than 1,000 pairs of donated glasses were given away and many of those in line to see a dentist had gotten teeth extracted. More than 1,000 bottles of painkillers and antibiotics were gone.

Tum has cataracts growing over his eyes. In addition to medical care for her stomach, Miro needs two teeth pulled because they're broken and decaying. Choma needs glasses, because she grew up cross-eyed and never received corrective care.

"I guess like everything, my eyes are about to give out," Tum says, lamenting that he has never been able to pay for his family to see a doctor. "When my vision goes," Tum, 46, says, "there won't be any way for me to make a living. This will be where we meet the end. Right here."

After Miro's medical exam the doctor tells Choma he has done all he can.

"This is very kind of you," Choma replies, lifting the girl from a small chair. "If she dies, I don't know what will become of us. Will there be a reason for any of us to carry on?"

As they leave, Miro turns to Figueroa and touches his hand. The two exchange a brief smile.

"Gracias," the girl whispers.

There was a time when life for the Tums - distant relatives of Guatemala Refugee and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rigoberto Menchu - was much better.

In those days, Tum said, "curanderos" would come into his home offering herbal remedies. Back then, villagers never had to deal with such things as cataracts, parasites, cancer or diabetes because their lands were much more hospitable.

Before the military chased them away from their mountain homelands about 20 year ago, they lived in harmony with the environment. A more temperate climate enabled crops to flourish. Water came from clear springs.

No one needed to worry about money, because vegetables, textiles, and other goods, were their primary sources of currency in a bartering society.

In 1996 Guatemala's military and the rebel militias - some made up of indigenous peoples like these - put down arms in return for government promises of greater prosperity, expanded human rights, medical care and lands of their own.

But this is not where Mayans wanted to resettle. Since arriving, they've discovered this lower climate is too hot. The ground is too full of rocks for growing corn or other vegetables; nearly half their crops are lost in the fields.

Most people can't communicate with those from surrounding villages because their first language is Q'eqchi, one of the 12 Mayan dialects, not Spanish.

Some tried to reclaim their former lands shortly after the peace treaty was signed. But they discovered new people living in their homes and working their fields.

"Do you think this is where we would want to be forever," Anselmo Rivera, 67, exclaimed while standing outside two cinder block buildings used to dispense medication.

"This is land many of us don't even own," he said, peering over a rugged and muddy field. "The people you see living in these terrible houses used to have nice villages in the mountains. We were a proud people, but today all we have is a struggle for life from one day to the next."

Growing government resentment is evident. Someone in the village cracked a state-owned oil supply line that runs through town, spilling thousands of gallons of crude onto the ground and leaving the stench of oil hanging in the humid air. Two nearby oil wells have been vandalized as well.

Even the government's patchwork efforts to modernize the village have caused harm to the people who live there.

Officials began running power lines into the area about two years ago. Since then, however, at least two homes per month have burned because of poorly installed electrical lines.

About a half dozen locals have died in these fires. One home even burned to the ground while doctors were tending to the village's medical needs.

The Mayan people cannot endure these conditions for much longer, said handyman Nicholas Popchen, 34.

"We are losing our history," Popchen said, adding that although most of the 10,000 or so who live in the El Caribe area earn less than $2 per day, they have given up their longstanding custom of trading goods with nearby villages and are using currency.

"We don't make the pottery we once did or the textiles," he said, pointing to vendors selling Coca-Cola and fruit to the people lined up to see doctors. "Our women now walk with plastic jugs on their heads."

Jose Maria Saqui May, the village's shaman, said he recently completed a reading of ancient Mayan stones to see what villagers might expect in the coming days. The rocks, he said, have been in use by his people for centuries.

"The reading showed peace has been a good thing for everyone," he explained, peering at an assembly of smooth edge stones aligned on the floor of his one-room home. "This is where the gods want us to be right now. They also tell us, we should not be made to suffer. We should not allow that to happen."

Seeing Double

For those of you wondering if I’m beginning to “lose it” (beginning?), I am indeed aware that I put two photos of the same New York scene on my photo page today. In fact, to be technically correct, they’re both the same photograph… it’s just that one is heavily cropped (which thankfully isn’t as painful as it sounds.)

So why did I decide to upload both versions simultaneously? Two reasons:

1. Because if I placed the two photos on two separate days there are those among you who would accuse me of trying to evade my photo-a-day responsibilities by pulling a twofer… two pictures for the price of one. (And don’t even think of giving me that innocent “who me?” look.)

2. Because I really couldn’t decide which of the two versions I liked better. I don’t even want to tell you how much time I spent trying to decide which of the two to choose. It’s sad, really. I’d rather not talk about it.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Unless, of course, you think both versions suck. In which case, feel free to remain exceedingly silent. Like they say: “ignorance is bliss”… and bliss is ok by me!

Here they are:

New New York and Old New York 1

New New York and Old New York 2

Article: Militarizing L.A.

U.S. Militarizing Latin America
by Jim Lobe
Published on Wednesday, October 6, 2004 by OneWorld.net

WASHINGTON- Less than 15 years after the end of the Cold War, the United States government is increasingly militarizing its relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a new report released here this week.

U.S. military aid to the region has risen sharply since 2000, according to the report, which noted that, even during the height of the Cold War, military assistance was only a third or less than the amount of assistance the U.S. provided in economic aid to Latin America.

In 2003, however, military aid came to US$860 million dollars, just short of the $921 million spent on economic and humanitarian assistance in the same year. If recent trends hold, military aid may actually exceed economic assistance, according to the new report, 'Blurring the Lines: Trends in U.S. Military Programs in Latin America.

Moreover, vague new doctrines propagated by the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), such as "effective sovereignty'' -- which considers that U.S. security may be threatened by Latin American governments' failure to exercise control over vast "ungoverned spaces" within their borders, are providing new rationales for regional militaries to assert their power over civilian authorities.

And, with considerably more financial and other resources than the State Department or other U.S. agencies, Southcom is increasingly defining the U.S. role in Latin America, according to the report which was co-produced by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), and the Center for International Policy (CIP).

"Blurring the Lines" is a reference to the distinct roles that are supposed to be carried out by military and civilian institutions in government, and the major theme of the report is that Washington is encouraging Latin American militaries to encroach on what should be the jurisdiction of civilians.

"This is not academic question," said Joy Olson, WOLA's executive director. "It goes to the heart of democracy, particularly for countries where transitions away from brutal military dictatorships are far from complete.

Read the complete article

Read “Blurring the Lines”

Download “Blurring the Lines” in pdf format

Article: Cocaine Pit Stop

Pit Stop on the Cocaine Highway
Guatemala Becomes Favored Link for U.S.-Bound Drugs

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 6, 2004; Page A20

GUATEMALA CITY -- They call it the airplane graveyard. Scores of torched planes sit in the Laguna del Tigre rain forest, an ecological gem teeming with jaguars and toucans. The planes carried cocaine from Colombia and then were discarded like old soft drink cans, an incidental cost of the multibillion-dollar drug business that is overrunning Guatemala.

In the 1990s, tons of Colombian cocaine were flown to northern Mexico and then driven across the border into the United States. But now better-equipped Mexican military pilots scramble to intercept suspicious planes. So traffickers prefer Guatemala, where the radar is spotty and the government is largely unable to stop the flights, according to Guatemalan and U.S. law enforcement officials.

As a result, Guatemala is now the hottest destination in Central America for Colombian cocaine on its way to the United States. Officials say tons are being flown to hastily carved landing strips in remote places such as Laguna del Tigre or shipped here in fishing vessels or freighters, then loaded onto trucks for a journey across this Tennessee-size country. The drugs are then driven across Mexico and into the United States, hidden in almost anything from cans of house paint to crates of fresh cheese.

"Every day it is a bigger and bigger problem," said Juan Luis Florido, Guatemala's attorney general. "It is a matter of national security for us and for the United States."

The increased cocaine trafficking has left an ugly mark: sensational mob-style killings that U.S. Ambassador John Hamilton has described as "like something out of 'The Godfather.' " He recalled how hit men recently walked into a hospital and killed nurses as well as a suspected drug trafficker lying in a bed. There also has been an alarming rise in the local use of crack cocaine.

The problems have become so severe that some citizens lament that former military governments knew how to control the problem better than the current democratic leaders.

U.S. officials here say they are increasingly concerned about the drug activity. Guatemala, still recovering from decades of civil war, has the largest economy in Central America. The officials say the traffic in cocaine -- and, increasingly, heroin -- is bringing more violence and instability, which have driven hundreds of thousands of citizens to migrate illegally to the United States in recent years.

Guatemalan officials say about 10 percent of the estimated 150 to 200 tons of cocaine a year passing through Guatemala is sold to users here, much of it distributed by street gangs known as maras. Tens of thousands of tattooed gang members who control many poor neighborhoods are Central America's biggest security concern. Their counterparts in the United States, from Los Angeles to Northern Virginia, are alarming U.S. law enforcement officials.

Guatemalan police say that crack cocaine has become a major source of income for gang members here and that because so many of them are now smoking it, violence has become more brutal.

"The drug traffickers use the maras as assassins and as their local salesmen," said Fernando Mendizabal, Guatemala's lead prosecutor for drug-related crimes. "They are used as a tool by organized crime."

Florido, the attorney general, said the problem increased dramatically during the administration of President Alfonso Portillo, whose four-year term ended in January. Portillo is now being investigated for alleged money laundering in the United States and Guatemala. Portillo's vice president, Juan Francisco Reyes Lopez, is in prison on various charges related to fraud; at least two dozen other top members of that administration are imprisoned or under criminal investigation.

Florido said the new government of President Oscar Berger inherited a huge drug trafficking problem and almost no resources to fight it. He said that if Guatemalan anti-drug police happen to spot a drug plane now, they have to ask the army for a helicopter to chase it. There is only one army helicopter available to the police, he said, and it is in poor shape. A second helicopter recently crashed, injuring several anti-drug officers, and has not been replaced.

Florido said it has been nearly impossible to catch the traffickers, who unload their cocaine in minutes and then burn or abandon their planes. He said traffickers with sophisticated boats also usually outrun Guatemalan naval forces, which have limited navigation and communications equipment.

U.S. officials say their ability to help is limited by a congressional ban, passed in 1990, on many types of aid to the Guatemalan military. The ban was imposed in response to a decades-long record of human rights violations during the country's civil war, when the military engaged in widespread torture and summary executions. Human rights groups remain leery of U.S. aid to Guatemalan security services, citing past CIA support for human rights violators.

No U.S. government aircraft are based permanently in Guatemala, though U.S. anti-drug officials said they were occasionally able to borrow a U.S. military plane or helicopter from a base in neighboring Honduras.

Hamilton, the ambassador, said a sign of the limitations facing Guatemala's anti-drug force is aircraft with such old windshields that they are difficult to see out of. "I think it would make sense for us to put a modest amount of money into spare parts and into enhancing their maintenance capabilities for their intercept aircraft," he said.

"I think that Washington is taking a fresh look at the possibility," Hamilton added. "It's a combination of our own interest and a feeling that we have a moral obligation to help a government that is really trying hard."

Florido said Guatemala needs far more from the United States than spare parts.

A case that has focused attention on the trafficking problem here is that of Otto Herrera, a Guatemalan citizen who is accused of being a key Central American connection between Colombian drug cartels and distributors in the United States. Herrera, 39, who is married to a woman from the United States, was arrested at the Mexico City airport in April, a year after officials raided his house in an affluent Guatemala City neighborhood and found $14 million in cash and two grenade launchers. He currently is in jail in Mexico on drug trafficking charges. The United States had offered a $2 million reward for his arrest, and the Mexican attorney general called his apprehension "great news for the hemisphere."

Social conditions here have also aided the drug traffickers. The overwhelming majority of Guatemala's 12 million people live in poverty, and 30 percent cannot read or write. Hugo Beteta, an academic who is now a top government planning official, said that half of Guatemala's population is younger than 18 and that most of those people have no hope of getting a job. He said poor, idle youths see two choices: migrate to the United States or get involved in the drug trade.

"And if you get tough on migration, what is left for them?" he said.

Officials here say Guatemala's weak judicial system is another attraction for international drug traffickers. In the rare instance that traffickers are caught in Guatemala, they have been known to bribe their way out of jail. U.S. officials were outraged and suspected corruption recently when a known associate of Herrera's was suddenly freed.

Drug trafficking experts say Colombian cartels appear to have found the same fertile ground in Guatemala that they found a decade ago in Mexico. Before he died in 1997, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one of Mexico's most notorious traffickers, pioneered the use of Boeing 727 jets to fly huge shipments of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. Now it is Guatemala's turn, the experts say.

"They have changed their strategy, and it's bad news for everyone," Florido said.

TV or not TV

That is the question.

For much of my adult life I have lived without television. It all started when I moved to El Rosario, Guatemala with Habitat for Humanity. I had to give up watching tv, because the village was far from the capital, there was no cable, reception was lousy, and… oh, yeah… there was no electricity. Which made watching tv difficult. (But not, I learned, impossible. Many families hooked up their small television sets to car batteries which could be recharged in nearby Champerico.)

But even when I finally ended up in Guatemala City, or Burlington, WA for that matter (both of which, incidentally, have electricity) I fought the urge to plug in the tube. My compromise in Washington was to buy a tiny tv with a built-in DVD player and join Netflix, so I could watch movies.

But now I’m faced with a dilemma. Every morning I edit the Central American and International news sections for the Daily Report. Since we try to get the report out and online as quickly as possible, we’re all under a tight deadline. Which means I have to sit down at the computer, log on to the internet, discover what the heck is going on in the world, then find out which news site has the best coverage of a particular event, and finally edit that article down to a brief summary.

The fact that I’m always starting from point zero … utterly clueless as to what has happened in the world since the previous morning… makes my life just a bit more complicated than it needs be. Being able to watch CNN, or the like, before heading into the office would give me a running start each day.

Not to mention that one of my co-workers, Erwin, is a real news hound. Damn near every morning he comes in and says “Roberto, did you see the images from Mosul last night?”, or words to that effect. To which I give him the stare. To which he responds “Oh, right. I forgot… you don’t have a tv.” At first I thought he had a bad memory, now I realize he’s trying to mess with my mind.

So what’s the problem? Well, my worry is I’ll fall too easily into the tv trap… watching too much boob-tube, cotton-candy-for-the-brain kinda stuff. Television is like coffee and chocolate… its difficult to “just say no”.

For example, when I was in NY last month I actually watched an episode of The Apprentice. I’m sorry. It was in a moment of weakness. I was just flipping through the channels and there, suddenly, was The Donald. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t look away. Oh, the shame… the shame.

So what is boils down to is this: On one hand, I definitely don’t want to miss out on Guatemalan reality for tv’s “reality” shows. On the other hand, being able to watch the news and occasionally relax with a movie would be exceedingly helpful.

Oh, yeah… and I really, really, really watching miss the West Wing.

Article: Must Do More

Guatemala must do more as UN mission ends - Annan

By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Guatemala has a long way to go to put decades of bloody conflict and human rights atrocities behind it as its U.N. peacebuilding mission prepares to shut down, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday.

While the Central American nation has taken significant steps to transform itself since a 1996 peace deal, "this is hardly a time for Guatemala to rest on its achievements," Annan said in a report to the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly.

The U.N. Verification Mission in Guatemala, with a current staff of about 100, is due to close down in December after 10 years in operation.

The peace accords signed by Guatemala with leftist guerrillas eight years ago ended 36 years of conflict in which some 200,000 people died, many in political slayings and massacres of Mayan Indians by state security forces.

The accords were intended to end the violence and install civilian rule after decades of military governments.

A cornerstone of the deal was shrinking the size and power of the military -- which was trained and financed by the United States after the CIA helped topple the leftist government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 -- and steering the money saved into health, education and public security.

President Oscar Berger has tried to clean up Guatemala's poor human rights record since he came to power in January.

He has cut the size of the army and apologized for past rights abuses. But security forces in rural areas are still often a law unto themselves.

Other lingering problems eight years after the peace deal are "a deep-seated legacy of racism" and vast social inequalities, Annan said.

"These are not reasons to fear a return to armed conflict; Guatemalans do not want to relive the past and now have democratic channels through which to express discontent," he said. "But if left to fester, these problems could be ingredients for social conflict, stunted economic development and the corrosion of democratic governance in years ahead."

Annan called on the authorities to make greater efforts to ensure the rule of law, reform the tax system and quickly reach agreement on paying reparations to the tens of thousands of victims of past human rights abuses.

Now THAT’S Scary

Sheesh, and to think I was worried about the streets of Guatemala!

Here’s a special “I dare you not to have nightmares” photograph for you. Believe it or not, the ghoul is actually my otherwise attractive friend Karla Droege. The photo is a still from her latest film, an Amish love story. (OK, I made that last part up… I’m pretty sure it’s a horror flick.)

ps: Yes, she’s wearing makeup.

These mean streets

I’m no scaredy-cat.

I’ve driven through lakes of mud, and on the thin edge of perilous mountain cliffs. I’ve slept with scorpions. I’ve swayed on the 16th floor to swinging beat of an earthquake tremor. I’ve eaten blood sausage, cow’s leg soup, fried ants, and jungle rat. I’ve struggled with a mugger, and haggled with an armed robber. I’ve been searched, spied on, threatened, tear-gassed and shot at… on various occasions.

And even after I managed to "make it out alive" after eleven years in Guatemala, I decided to go back. Why? Because I’m no scaredy-cat.

But I have to confess that, lately, the city streets are giving me the willies. Not during the day. Not in the ritzier parts of the city. But here in Zone 1, where I work and live, I’d rather not be on the streets at night.

Crime has Guatemala City in a stranglehold. Movie theatres nearby no longer show movies after 7pm. Businesses close early, most restaurants shut their heavy metal doors by ten, even on the weekends. Hustling-and-bustling Sixth Avenue becomes a no-man’s land at night.

This evening, as a matter of fact, I had a “late” dinner with my friend Quimmy. We were well lost in conversation (politics, of course) when we realized that we were the last customers in the restaurant. It was just after 10pm.

While I accompanied her back home we both acknowledged how uneasy we feel walking in the city at night nowadays. There is a palpable sense of tension, aggressiveness, and menace on the street that neither of us could recall having felt before.

To be sure, Guatemala is a big city in a poor country, crime is nothing new here. You always had to keep your guard up. But now even being alert doesn’t help ease the feeling that you’re always one unlucky step away from being a victim.

Come to think of it, I guess that if you feel like that you already are a victim, of sorts.

After leaving Quimmy at her apartment I returned to my own sanctuary on the sixteenth floor. As I looked out on the city lights, all golden and white, I was moved yet again by its beauty. I just hope that someday soon the view from street-level will be as agreeable.

Friday nighty-night

I’d love to be witty and charming and wise right now. But I’m afraid I’m actually sleepy and dozing and tired. So “goodnight” to everyone … sweet dreams … have a happy weekend!